Our major archival sources were the James Bryant Conant and Nathan
Marsh Pusey Presidential Papers, housed in the Harvard Archives. Each
consists of some 500 boxes of presidential correspondence, incoming
letters, copies of important correspondence to and from the deans and
other officers, memoranda and reports, and much else besides. They
provided rich and detailed access into the day-to-day, year-by year life
of Harvard from 1933 to 1971.

Since Parts I and II of this book are heavily based on these manuscript collections, we have tried to make our endnote citations as
compressed as possible, while enabling the curious (or skeptical) reader
to track down our sources. In all cases we indicate folder names and box
numbers. (The Archives now has inventory lists of the box numbers of
all folders in the Conant and Pusey Presidential Papers). If—as was
almost always the case—an item cited from the Conant or Pusey Presidential Papers falls within that man's time in office, we omit a reference
to the collection from which it comes: that should be self-evident. We
have also made use of other collections, all in the Archives.

The evidentiary base for Part III, covering Harvard's history from 1971
to 2000, is different in character. The Bok and Rudenstine presidential
papers were not available to us. We were able to see internally published
reports and, on occasion, to use correspondence from faculty members
with their permission. Phyllis Keller was active in the administration of
the Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1973 to 1997, and we have drawn
on her experience for much of our discussion. Newspapers and magazines, both on campus and off, proved to be richly helpful: a tribute in its
own way to Harvard's iconic place in modern American life.

We have adopted the following abbreviations for frequently cited names
and references:

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